G is for Granite
by Cascade Waters
Summary: Can't judge a rookie by his cover... First in my letter fic chain.


G is for Granite

firechild

Rated PG (I haven't studied the rating system for this board)

Spoilers: None that come to mind...

Disclaimers: Um... duh. I own my rolaids (and barely make enough to afford them.)

A/N: This is set 2-4 weeks before Colby's revelation to David about the deaths of the British soldiers. Chronologically, it falls before F is for Flags, though that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

-----

"What's wrong, Granger? You're looking kinda spacey over there."

Colby pulled himself out of his thoughts with some effort, looking up at his team leader quizzically for a moment before registering the question and the concern in the senior agent's eyes.

"Wha-? Oh. Sorry, Don. Nah, I'm fine."

"You sure?" Don was clearly less than convinced. Colby could see the rest of the team behind Don, casting worried looks his way, and he gathered that this was not the first time someone had tried to get his attention. Colby felt a twinge of embarrassment, followed by a rush of guilt; he liked the dynamics of the team, he appreciated that they cared about him, but he refused to be a squeaky wheel.

"No, really, I'm okay. Sorry about that."

They waved off his apology, and he threw as much of himself into work as he could (which wasn't all that much, but better than nothing) but he had a feeling that this wasn't the end of it.

And he was right. As the team members filed their paperwork and finally dispersed at around 8PM, David cornered Colby in the parking garage, his face concerned.

"Colb, man, what's up with you?"

"David, I told you, it's nothing you need to bother with. I'm fine. Look, I'm sorry I zoned out on you like that; it was inexcusable and it won't happen again."

"Oh, come on, Granger, this is me you're talking to! I may not be Charlie, but I'm smart enough to see through you; I'm your partner, man, we're supposed to be able to talk to each other, to trust each other. Don't you trust me?"

Colby looked a little stricken. "Of course I trust you! I trust you with my life, you know that!"

David sighed and dialed down a little, softening his tone at the younger man's reaction. "Yeah, Colby, I know you trust me when we're under fire, but when the heat is off, what happens? We're partners, Colby, we're friends, or at least I think we are; we shouldn't have to do this dance." He paused, put up his hands, and moved back half a step. "Look, man, I'm sorry, I'm pushing and I should know better. I know where you've been, I know there are things you don't talk about, and I respect that. I just thought... Never mind. Long as it doesn't put you or anyone else in danger, I'll stop dogging you." David turned and walked toward the spot where he'd parked his Integra.

"Funny you should mention 'under fire.'"

The older agent stopped at the sound of his partner's voice. He turned to look at Colby but held his silence and his ground, a tacit message that he was done pushing and crowding and would be available whenever Colby was ready to seek him out.

Which was, apparently, sooner than he would have expected, as Colby crossed the distance between them, looking guilty and chastised. David winced—that wasn't what he'd intended. He opened his mouth to resolve that, but before he could speak, Colby rest his hands on his hips, focused his eyes on something on the pavement a few feet to David's left, and said quietly, "My father is chief of the Winchester Fire Department, among other things—and he's just a volunteer. My mom called me early this morning to tell me that there'd been an explosion last night at the plastics plant outside of town, during the graveyard shift. No word yet on how it happened, could have been a short in one of the resin machines, I don't know. All of the area departments responded, but Winchester was the first and the best organized, and our guys threw everything they had at it. It took six hours to get a handle on the fire, since an explosion at a place like that is usually really a series of explosions. The girders and supports in parts of the plant destabilized, and one of the bubble machines collapsed." He glanced up at his partner briefly before dropping his gaze again, and something in David's gut twisted at what he'd seen, the seasoned agent and the loyal friend bracing for the rest.

"My father was caught under it."

"Oh. Oh man. Colby, I--" David was caught up short, at a total loss. He'd seen a lot as a Federal agent, but somehow none of it had prepared him for this, had given him the tools to know how to respond to this. It wasn't that he didn't know how to deal with a friend in a rough spot; the problem was more of not knowing how to deal with _this_ friend in crisis. He knew that Colby had to have been through some pretty heavy stuff, between his days as a soldier and his new life as an agent, but Colby was usually the spark, the youthful, unrelenting energy, brash and unapologetic and apt to throw down and go after his target with everything he had. David felt a tug of shame as he realized that he'd really never given thought to the idea that there might be more to this man, that just because Colby went after his goals with everything he had didn't necessarily mean that David had met all of that everything. The younger agent obviously had layers that his partner had never seen, layers for which David had never given him credit. They were partners, yes, but each daily put his life into the hands of a man he claimed to trust but didn't really know.

It was time to start to remedy that.

"Are you okay?"

Colby saw David peering at him closely, and there was something different in the older man's eyes, something Colby couldn't quite identify.

"David, yes, I said I'm fine. I appreciate your concern, really, but it's nothing you need to worry about."

David's brow furrowed. "Of course I need to worry about it—that's what we do. Now, when do you need to leave?"

"Huh?"

"For the airport, genius. When's your flight?"

"Oh. Oh! There isn't one."

David turned a sideways gaze on Colby, which absurdly made the younger man think of Arnold on 'Diff'rent Strokes.' "What do you mean, there isn't one?"

Colby shrugged. "I mean, there is no flight. I'm not going home." At his partner's openly incredulous look, Colby chuckled a little. "Get real, David—if I was going home, don't you think I'd be there by now?"

Sinclair straightened a little. "I guess I don't get it. Your dad was hurt in an explosion. Why aren't you going home?"

"Because my mom told me not to." Colby started walking calmly toward his truck, pulling out his keys and thumbing through them in his palm until he came to his Chevy key.

Befuddled, it took David a moment to realize that his partner's slow walk was an invitation for David to continue if he chose. The older agent scrambled to catch up to his partner, studying Colby's profile and deciding that he'd struck a nerve. "Okay, now I know I don't get it—why would your mom tell you not to come home over something like this? And… and wait a minute! You never do what you're told! Why are you being such an obedient little Granger now? Did I miss something? Things sour with you and your old man?"

Colby didn't glance over his shoulder as he opened the driver's door of the truck. His tone was calm, matter-of-fact, and he didn't want to risk letting his eyes ruin the illusion. "No, things aren't sour. They're actually pretty good; and yes, I'd do just about anything for my dad. Mom told me not to come because my parents and I have an arrangement and she didn't see this as a reason to breach it; I tried to change her mind, but I couldn't, and I couldn't add to her stress by pitching a fit and giving her something else to worry about. And I do, too, do what I'm told. Just not graciously. I don't do aplomb." He finished what he was doing with some files that rested between the seat and the rear cabin wall, but still didn't turn around.

It occurred to David that this might be a sign of delayed grief, which was common with aggregate trauma, so he tried to tread carefully. "Colby, man, is… is your dad…?"

"No." Colby thought to himself that if his father had died that morning, he wasn't sure what his mental state would be at this moment. Resolutely, he shoved that thought aside, determined not to waste energy on it. "No, no, dad's alright. I mean, he's pretty banged up, a few fractures, some smoke inhalation, burns here and there, but he's gonna be fine. It'll just take some time."

Out of the corner of his eye, Colby could still see the concern practically pouring off of his partner in waves, and he smiled a bit, then gave a half-chuckle. "Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I even talked to him at lunch. He threatened to string me up if I tried to come home just for this." Colby zoned out a bit as he thought back on that conversation. Okay, so he hadn't been entirely honest with David—his father had threatened to do something to him, something markedly different from hanging, but David didn't need to know that. And, if Colby was at least going to be honest with himself, he had to admit that no matter how uncomfortable his father's words might have made him, just hearing the man's voice had been something he'd needed more than he had thought possible.

David took in what he'd heard, sure he was missing something and not understanding why Colby's parents would be so adamant that their son not be with his family at a time like this, but he decided to put that aside for the moment and concentrate on his friend's state of mind.

"Colb," David said softly, "talk to me. What's going on in that hard head of yours? Come on, man, you can't pretend anymore that this isn't eating at you; maybe I've been a little blind before, but I can see it now. Why don't you tell me what you're thinking, what you want now and how I, how we, can help you? No shame in leaning on your friends. That's what we're here for, you know."

Colby looked at David, seeming to struggle with some decision, then finally closed the door and turned around to lean back against it, his arms folded over his chest as he gazed out over the garage. "I guess I don't really need anything right now. I mean, don't get me wrong, I appreciate the offer; I just don't think there's anything you can do for me. I can't be where I really want to be, so I'm just gonna have to work a whole lot harder at being more here. And you're not blind—I've just had a lot of practice at keeping things under wraps. I'm actually pretty good at it, usually. I don't know why this time had to be so screwed up."

David matched his partner's pose as he took a moment to mull. "Maybe," he said slowly, "maybe it's not screwed up; maybe it just seems screwed up because this time you're not supposed to keep it under wraps. Maybe this time the thrust pushing it up and out overpowered the gravity trying to pull it back down inside."

Colby tossed the older agent a wry half-grin. "Careful, now, you're starting to sound like Larry. Keep spouting that way, and next thing we know, you'll be wearing Hawaiian shirts to work."

David chuckled a little, then sobered. "Nah, man, I'm serious. You work hard a lot of the time to suck it in, to pull stuff down so deep that it can't come up and get in your way and complicate things, right? So today something pushed back, and it pushed harder than you did. I'm not saying I'm an expert or anything, but in my experience, that usually means that either the inn is full and the stable's been rented to shoot some bad Sunday night movie, or there's something there that needs to be dealt with more than you need to ignore it. So you stop wasting your energy running from it, and you call in your backup, and everybody locks and loads, and you deal with it, and then you get on with your life, and you get to know who's got your back, who'll go to the wall for you, who you want beside you when you go through the door. May not be easy, but it's smart, and it's a heck of a lot cheaper than therapy."

Colby seemed to turn this over in his mind for a few minutes. He had a decision to make, and David was content to cool his jets and give the younger man whatever time he needed. There was no particular sense of finality here, but both of them knew on some level that if Colby shut down on David now, they were both in for some serious work to shore up the foundation of their partnership. Neither of them wanted to start over with someone else, and neither of them felt the need to discuss everything he thought or felt, but every partnership was different, and this one was going to need more than assumptions.

A warm breeze, smelling of tar and rubber and stale cigarette smoke, wafted lazily into the parking garage, dispassionately displacing an empty root beer can halfway down the row from the two agents before making its way over to creep up the arm of David's polo shirt.

"Get in—I want to show you something."

----

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

Colby didn't have to see David rolling his eyes to know that it happened; he gave a faint grin in response as he pulled into the parking lot connected to a deserted high school athletic field. Silently, he slipped out of the truck, shut his door, and went around to release the tailgate, hoisting himself up onto it and then… just sitting. David watched via the rearview mirror for a couple of minutes before he shrugged and went to join his partner. He resisted the urge to ask what they were doing there, what Colby was waiting for, figuring that whatever Colby's decision, the Midwesterner would at least tell him that much.

He was entertaining thoughts of old-style private detectives, narrating stories in which they fell into traps while following their curiosity, when Colby proved him right in a way David hadn't expected.

"I ran track in high school. I know, I know, weird, huh? I mean, everybody looks at me and just assumes 'football,' but I actually wasn't that into football as a kid. Or most of the other sports. Basically, I just took up track for the gym credit and because it seemed like it had more kinds of challenges. I thought it beat dodgeball. And I thought it might shut people up." Colby shrugged to himself. "When I wasn't doing track, I was reading or hiking, and one year I did karate. Basically, though, I wasn't exactly your all-around jock. I didn't play everything, or most things."

David nodded to show that he was listening, even if he wasn't sure what he was listening for; he did have a feeling that he was about to be surprised.

"Most people see me, they think 'jock, he's just a big dumb jock' and they roll their eyes and keep going, or they try to figure out if they should know me from the sports section or something. Most of the people at home who know me think I'm soft because I'm big but I didn't want to follow in my dad's footsteps to try to be a champion quarterback like he was. Lots of people were disappointed, some were even mad when I didn't go for it, and I had several tell me I was being selfish and letting down the school, the whole town, and mostly my father, who deserved a son who was a 'real man' and 'knew his place.' It wasn't that I was afraid or anything, I just wasn't interested—football, wrestling, they just didn't mean much to me. But that was it, that was all it took, and I was branded a wimp and a disappointment. Even track didn't do me any good on that end; people just couldn't get over it, how the son of the champion could duck like that."

He stared off toward the dim halogen glow on the horizon. "But my dad… My dad wouldn't listen. He said he wanted me to do something outside, something physical, but he wasn't all that worried about what. He told me that as long as I wasn't running from him, from Mom, or from my problems, I could run all I wanted, and if I wanted to do something else instead, well, that was fine, too. I worried for awhile that he was going to be embarrassed about all of it, about me, but he told me not to worry, that he was a big boy and he didn't have to care what anyone else said. Big boy—heh, yeah, big boy he is, I'll tell ya that much."

David quirked a small smile at the image in his mind of a man a couple of inches shorter than Colby, a little thinner, but still impressive, lecturing a teenage Colby about being true to himself; the older agent held his silence, sensing that his young partner needed to say all of what was on his mind.

Colby studied his own hands. "My dad's no dwarf, that's for sure. He's big, and he's fast, and he's strong, and you know just by looking at him that he could reorganize your bone structure if he had a mind to, but he's usually real peaceful. I mean, the guy runs a sporting goods store, for Pete's sake! He only does dangerous stuff when he's called to go out with the fire department, and that's only two or three times a year. He drives smart, he eats smart, he exercises smart—the guy's pretty near indestructible. Or that's what I always thought, anyway. Oh, he's not a coward, not one to back down when there's something worth throwing down for, but he's usually cool-headed. He has this great voice, does all sorts of impressions. And the strongest hands on the planet. He can kill a tension knot with them almost before you know it's even there; and let me tell you, he could kill a bad attitude real quick with them, too. Those hands, I swear, they're made of rock."

Leaving his hands open, palms up, resting in his lap, Colby turned his gaze back up to the halogen horizon.

"I'm not used to worrying about my dad; the man's made of granite. He doesn't fall, he doesn't melt, he doesn't burn. I guess that's why I can't get my head around what's going on now—I never thought I'd live through a day like today. I never thought I'd come so close to losing him."

A sideways glance told David that the waterworks were nowhere to be seen, and though Colby's voice had grown quieter and rougher toward the end, the younger man was still holding it together. A couple of minutes passed before David landed on something to say.

"Do you think maybe this is how our parents feel when we gear up and go on a raid?"

He was a little surprised at Colby's snort. "Yeah, yours, maybe, I don't really know anything about them. Don's, definitely. Megan's, well, probably, even if they'd never suck it up and admit it to her. Mine, no."

"No? Really? But your folks sound so… great. I'm sure they worry."

"Nah, man. Trust me on this—my family does not worry about me. They stopped doing that before I came home from Afghanistan. Don't get me wrong, I know they care and all, but they don't really think all that much about what I do or what could happen. And that's a good thing."

David snorted, letting Colby know he wasn't buying it, but the younger man just shrugged and hopped down, asking if David wanted to go to his apartment or to his car. As they headed back toward the parking garage, David made a pitch at lightening the mood.

"So, tell me, does Colby the Sprinter have anything to do with this deal you and your parents have that's keeping you out of Winchester?"

Colby's mouth tightened a little.

"Hey, man, you okay? Did I say something out of line?"

Colby eased up a little, sighing. "No, sorry, I'm fine, it's just… Nothing to do with you or with trust or anything, but that's just a conversation I'm not ready to have with anybody."

"Alright, that's cool, man, sorry I brought it up." David was glad to see that Colby kept working on relaxing bit by bit.

They passed the rest of the drive in silence, only exchanging goodnights as David got out of the truck and into his car, but he knew that their conversation had mattered in more ways than one. He also knew that he owed Colby the same consideration and would have to remember to tell him more about the Family Sinclair; maybe a little give for the take would go farther in this strange partnership.

And somehow, somewhere between the concerned friend and the sharp investigator, he understood that his partner's battle to regain his balance and his peace of mind would not really be resolved until the young man saw his father for himself, until he reassured himself that the granite had not crumbled.

-----


End file.
